GEOG 210 Lecture 8 Notes Jan 30.docx

GEOG 210
Thursday January 30, 2014
Lecture 8
THEME 3
The Making of Cultural Landscapes
The Concept of Nature Progression in Views of Nature
• What is a Resource? An environment?
o Visual resource in Quebec­ Tourism
What is Nature: Cultural variation in views of nature
• Resource can be defined as how it is useful/helpful to humans
• What is and is not a resource is a matter of perception
• A perceived set of resources differs over time and space to reflect variations in:
a) Physical presence
b) Knowledge
c) Technology
d) Social Structures
e) Economic conditions
f) Political Systems
• Resource is not definite
• This difference is WHERE resources are WHEN (when do people appreciate it as
a resource), and for WHO is important in the formation of cultural landscapes:
Particularly where the cultural significance of:
• Landscapes, flora, fauna, ecosystems ▯ all vary between social groups
• If we use it­ it is a resource
Concept of Nature­Progression in Views of Nature
Humans designate as ‘resources’
• Only those things which they have the knowledge and the technology to use:
o Provide desired goods and services
o Natural stuff failing to meet this requirement is called:
 ‘Neutral stuff’ or ‘Nuisance stuff’
What is Nature?
• Western (European derived) views of the environment (ideal landscape):
• We start with Paradise
o All things good, luxurious garden, mild climate all year, ripe fruit on every
tree, no thorns or stinging insects, no aggressive animals, no want or
danger—An Ideal state • Historicall : In the Judeo­Christian Tradition, Paradise is ‘good’, and wilderness
was then seen as the manifestation of ‘evil’
• Wilderness embodied :
1. Danger
2. Beyond Control
3. Terror of the wild, leading to a hostility toward nature
4. Evil, supernatural, monstrous
5. 5. Mystery­ fear
Wilderness as ‘evil’
• For the Greeks there were many demons that lived in the wild places
• The lord of the woods for the Greeks was called “Pan” and was part man and part
goat
• The word “Panic” was derived from the fear that seized travelers in the forest
when they heard noises, thinking Pan was approaching
Views of Nature
• Safet , happiness, and progress for this point of view depended on rising out of
the wilderness – getting distance between wilderness­ further you are the safer
you are and more prosperous you are
• But, for much of history (in the Judeo Christian tradition), reality was closer to
the “beyond control” and ‘danger’ aspect of wilderness instead of paradise
• Early Greeks and Romans lamented that so much of the world was dominated by
mountains and forest and wild beasts
• In such a view, the very definition of nature dealt with a tamed beauty, a pastoral
setting
• Wilderness as not even considered nature, but only forbidding and repulsive
• Convert is from something dangerous to something prosperous
• Humans in this tradition wanted to control nature:
1. Fire, was a first step
2. Domestication of animals
3. Clearing land and raising crops
• The reduction in the amount of wilderness and the increase in the amount of
cleared agricultural land in an area ▯ marked human achievement and advancement
toward civilization
• In other words, the earlier people in this tradition lived very close to wilderness
• And were TOO subject to its brutalities for any sort of appreciation—Danger and
hardship were everywhere
• ‘Civilizing areas meant bringing order to chaos and changing evil into good
• Later, with the advance of this ‘civilizing’, nature became viewed as something
useful: o Trees became lumber, Prairies became farms, Canyons became sites for
dams—make the wilderness blood
o Uncultivated land in this view was useless­ if its useless­ make it useful­
notion of progress
• This stage idealized ‘progress.’ ▯H